A Murder Conviction Torn Apart By A Bullet

Washington Post: In a 1995 Maryland Case, Key Testimony and the Science Behind It Have Been Discredited

(Washingtonpost.com)  This article was written by John Solomon .

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Former Baltimore police sergeant James A. Kulbicki stared silently from the defense table as the prosecutor held up his off-duty .38-caliber revolver and assured jurors that science proved the gun had been used to kill Kulbicki's mistress.

"I wonder what it felt like, Mr. Kulbicki, to have taken this gun, pressed it to the skull of that young woman and pulled the trigger, that cold steel," the prosecutor said during closing arguments.

Prosecutors had linked the weapon to Kulbicki through forensic science. Maryland's top firearms expert said that the gun had been cleaned and that its bullets were consistent in size with the one that killed the victim. The state expert could not match the markings on the bullets to Kulbicki's gun. But an FBI expert took the stand to say that a science that matches bullets by their lead content had linked the fatal bullet to Kulbicki.

The jurors were convinced, and in 1995 Kulbicki was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his 22-year-old girlfriend. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

For a dozen years, Kulbicki sat in state prison, saddled with the image of the calculating killer portrayed in the 1996 made-for-TV movie "Double Jeopardy."

Then the scientific evidence unraveled.

Earlier this year, the state expert committed suicide, leaving a trail of false credentials, inaccurate testimony and lab notes that conflicted with what he had told jurors. Two years before, the FBI crime lab had discarded the bullet-matching science that it had used to link Kulbicki to the crime.

Now a judge in Baltimore County is weighing whether to overturn Kulbicki's conviction in a legal challenge that could have ripple effects across Maryland. The case symbolizes growing national concerns about just how far forensic experts are willing to go to help prosecutors secure a conviction.

"If this could happen to my client, who was a cop who worked within this justice system, what does it say about defendants who know far less about the process and may have far fewer resources to uncover evidence of their innocence that may have been withheld by the prosecution or their scientific experts?" said Suzanne K. Drouet, a former Justice Department lawyer who took on Kulbicki's case as a public defender.

Prosecutors are fighting to uphold Kulbicki's conviction, arguing that there is still plenty of evidence that proves his guilt.

"While much of the evidence against the petitioner falls into the category of circumstantial evidence, the state presented a mountain of evidence, both direct and circumstantial," prosecutors argued in a motion earlier this year opposing Kulbicki's request for a new trial.

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This report is part of a joint investiagation between 60 Minutes and The Washington Post:

60 Minutes: Evidence Of Injustice
Washington Post: FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes
Washington Post: A Murder Conviction Torn Apart By A Bullet

To learn more about the bullet lead cases uncovered in this project, click here.

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Police had lots of circumstantial evidence. A jacket with the victim's blood on the sleeve was found hanging in Kulbicki's closet. And four bone chips and a bullet fragment were found in his truck. Tiny drops of blood also were found in the truck, and one spot of blood on the holster of his off-duty weapon. But the blood spots were so small and their quality so poor that they could not be matched to the victim.

Kulbicki's attorneys offered several witnesses who provided an alibi. The defense team also uncovered evidence that the bloody jacket had been worn by Kulbicki's teenage stepson. The stepson denied being involved in the killing.

While Kulbicki's request for a new trial has been pending, a Maryland appeals court recently overturned another murder conviction that relied on the same FBI bullet-matching technique, discrediting it as "not generally accepted" science.

"We all have roles to play in the criminal justice system, and prosecutors ordinarily don't have scientific backgrounds," said Assistant State's Attorney S. Ann Brobst, one of the Kulbicki prosecutors.

"For this office it is troubling and disappointing that we may potentially be faced with the possibility of having to retry a man who we fervently believe is guilty of first-degree murder of an innocent woman because we relied on scientific experts and reputable labs -- in one case, the FBI -- which this office and the public believed to be stellar in terms of reputation."

Prosecutors must convince the courts that the scientific evidence they introduce is deemed reliable by the scientific community. In addition, any information they possess that could assist the defense in proving innocence must be turned over before trial. Coincidentally, the case law that imposed that honor system on prosecutors originated in Kulbicki's home state during the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland.

The long-shot effort to overturn Kulbicki's conviction rests on defense arguments that those rules were violated.

A Different Story

Kulbicki, now 51, was arrested on Jan. 13, 1993, three days after the body of his mistress, Gina Marie Nueslein, was found near a garbage can in Gunpowder Falls State Park in suburban Baltimore. She had been shot in the head, execution-style.

The Baltimore city patrol sergeant had cheated on his wife with Nueslein, had fathered a child with her and was engaged in a contentious paternity dispute with the victim when she was abducted and killed.

The prosecutors had one witness who said that she had seen Kulbicki at the park around the time Nueslein's body was dumped, but she identified Kulbicki after seeing his arrest on TV and not in an independent lineup.

The defense offered testimony from several shopkeepers -- a dry cleaner, a hardware-store owner and a shoe repairman -- as well as Kulbicki's wife, who said that he was half an hour away when Nueslein was killed. The defense used a sales receipt to link Kulbicki to the hardware store.

Kulbicki was found guilty in late 1993, but that conviction was overturned because of concerns that he had not been allowed to fully testify in his defense. He was retried in 1995 and was again convicted.

Kulbicki continued to maintain his innocence, focusing specifically on the prosecution's science. He had an unexpected advocate: the wife he had cheated on stood steadfastly behind him.

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